


The Year of the Influenza

by boychik



Category: Hatoful Kareshi | Hatoful Boyfriend
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Illness
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-12-06
Updated: 2012-12-06
Packaged: 2017-11-20 12:04:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 903
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/585224
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/boychik/pseuds/boychik
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Anghel cares for Hiyoko during the Spanish influenza of 1918.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Year of the Influenza

In the year of the influenza, he lit candles and set them down in a circle around me.

 _These will protect you,_ he said, looking straight into my eyes. He had the softest wings, the color of the sky before the storm. Since I couldn’t see the sky anymore, I would stare at his feathers as if they were the gathering clouds, search his shining pitch eyes for the constellations I used to so casually identify on clear nights. Orion, Hydra, Andromeda!

I hadn’t been outside in a month. Although I felt fatigued, my legs and my heart wanted nothing more than to skip over a patch of grass, turn my face up to a full red sun, and breathe in a gust of wind, fresh and pure as a waterfall. Truly, I wanted nothing more than to see the sun and the sky, but I could not. Whenever I asked about the situation outside, the response was terrifying. _The bodies are stacked a dozen high, bloodied with the stench of death…I will not let you number amongst them, Edel Blau, Apostle of the Blue Sky!_ Apostle of the Blue Sky. What a joke. I couldn’t even go outside.

So it was inside that I rested the tips of my fingers on those weightless bones, ran my fingertips along his gentle primaries and through the dense feathers of his chest until I could feel his heartbeat, fast and strong. We could pass a few minutes in this way until up he’d hop, with a shock and a rustle, privy to some new vision.

He flew like a small hurricane. _Edel Blau, I trust you will gather your strength…the Day of Judgment is nigh! _He’d drip hot wax on my stomach as he talked. I used to close my eyes and picture his bright breast, dripping crimson, the fluid absorbing into my own heart, until we were one.__

Sometimes he’d enter my room in the middle of the night, bearing light among the dark. It reflected under his chin and off his beak, throwing the strangest shadows. “You look so funny, Anghel,” I’d say. “You should have a halo…” I’d laugh, a rasp, and he’d flutter down, candle in wing, to the stone floor.

 _Have you sipped of Lethe, Edel Blau?_ he would ask, genuinely concerned. _I am not just any angel…you remember who I am?_

“Of course I remember, Higure,” I’d cough. Watch from dull auburn eyes the flicker of light and heat against the wall. I wondered if he could see what I saw. Sometimes the shadows took the forms of the figures of his tales: In a burst of darkness I recognized the Dark Sorcerer Wallenstein, and in the dissipations of smoke the wake of the fleeing Seere Reprobus. “When will the Dark Angel rise…?” I asked, half-teasingly, half-serious. At these sorts of questions Anghel would become very flustered. _Do not tempt the fates, Edel Blau!_ One time he flew straight up, punched a hole in the flimsy ceiling, and came soaring down to the ground. Sick as I was, I was quick as ever, and I caught the Luzon, his soft body thudding noiselessly into my palms. I became aware of how small he was. I hadn’t really thought about it, but in all the time he was taking care of me, it must have been very hard to fly for him all those candles to my side. And how many glasses of water had he lugged to my side each day? My head began to hurt. “Thank you,” I whispered, but I didn’t know if Anghel could hear me. Maybe in his dreams. He was out cold.

***

Far above my circle of small white candles, I could do nothing but watch the strains of smoke rising through the vents in the ceiling, the candles eventually diminishing to nothing, white wax pooling and rolling towards the door.

One day he whirled in. _It’s winter, Edel Blau!_ He gave a great jump and a shiver, attempting to dislodge the particles of snow that had blown under his primary coverts.

Winter, eh? Many liked to bash it, but I lived outside for so long that I had grown used to the harsh gales. This was the first winter I’d spend that wasn’t in my beloved rock formation, exposed to the elements. A wave of melancholy washed over my heart, but I had a firm resolve. I would stay indoors until it was absolutely safe.

***

The swirls of snow soon became a blizzard, barricading the door shut with an elegant but unyielding wall of ice. 

That evening we killed the candle flames. It was impossible to know how long we would be forced to stay in my cold cage of a home, holed up like blind bears. We needed to conserve our heat and light. Looking at only the starless void, we mumbled nothing of importance until I fell asleep like a heavy ribbon over him. I wanted to be the broad ribbon of sky that wraps up angels like gifts, I wanted to feel our breath in tandem like the flutter of wind through Spanish moss. My fever could never reach him, never push its grime-green fingers down his throat and into his lungs like a cruel squat toad. For that I was grateful, for then I could hope that once aligned, his clean snowy body would purify mine.


End file.
